Microsoft has released instructions for administrators who want to avoid a forced upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer, version 7, due to occur on February 12.

Users of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) — Microsoft's software-update service for businesses — who are currently using Internet Explorer (IE) 6 will be automatically upgraded to IE7 on that date, Microsoft announced on its manageability team blog on 14 January.

However, this can be avoided if WSUS is not configured to "auto-approve" update rollup packages, wrote Microsoft "manageability knowledge engineer" JC Hornbeck in the blog post.